Whatever whisky you prefer, whether you drink it straight, with ice, served with a mixer or prefer to keep it for your collection, it all has one thing in common; it comes in a bottle. Whisky glass bottle sizes have been standardized since the turn of the 20th century. However, the humble whisky bottle has as interesting and varied a history as the whisky it holds.
Over the centuries bottle sizes and fashions have largely been set arbitrarily. The largest and first real influence on whisky glass bottle sizes, and one which has been carried through the years, was not from any consideration for the drinker or storage of the drink; it was simply the average size of a glass blower’s lungs in the 17th century.
Glass is inert and impermeable and so it was the perfect solution when the first distillers were looking for a way to effectively preserve and distribute their spirit to its ever-growing audience. Whisky glass bottles were made by specialized glass blowers and were expensive to produce. A hand-blown bottle was typically between 600-800ml (60-80cl) because that was the average lung capacity of the glass blowers of the time. Due to the expense and luxury of the glass, the whisky connoisseurs of the 17th century would have taken their own bottles to be filled.
On the 1st January 1980 the global standard for wine, spirit and liqueur bottles came into force converting liquid ounces to metric volume. Standard whisky glass bottle size was set at 750 ml, also commonly denoted as 75cl. This is the standard still used in much of the world today, including the USA.
